Zoomed Vinay Special · First-person editorial

Ambedkar Admired Christ, Defended the Missions Against Gandhi, Then Chose the Buddha. His "Denationalise" Line Came From a Proposed Mahasabha Deal

Between 1935 and 1956 B.R. Ambedkar weighed Christianity as a new home for the Untouchables and decided against it, and I take you through every page of it in the Government of Maharashtra's own volumes: the praise almost nobody quotes, the criticism everybody does, and the one famous word, "denationalise", which he wrote for a proposed Hindu Mahasabha deal, not in his great public speech. Our own first version put that word in the wrong place, and I show you exactly where. And because no one is above the texts, I also test his own claims about Hinduism, and Gandhi's, against the Gita, the Upanishads, the Rig Veda and Manu: where they hold, and where the texts say otherwise.

Written by Zoomed Vinay

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The point of view

Let's go to Dadar, Bombay. To be precise, 31 May 1936. About thirty-five thousand people in a pandal, a Christian missionary among the special invitees, and Ambedkar telling them, in the government's translation of his speech, that Christianity and Islam taught equality and Hinduism did not. Nineteen days later he hands a Hindu Mahasabha leader a statement saying conversion to Islam or Christianity "will denationalise the Depressed Classes". Guess which line gets quoted. In essays found after his death he praised the missions, wrote that Gandhi had been "grossly unjust" to them, and wrote, from converts' own testimony, that caste had followed them into the church. In 1956 he chose the Buddha. And his claims about Hinduism? I test ten of them, and seven of Gandhi's, against the Sanskrit texts. Two of his fail outright, three are overstated, and five hold. Every page, read for you.

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Zoomed Vinay Special · Fact

Ambedkar Warned That in Politics Hero-Worship Is "a Sure Road to Degradation." Since 1990 Party After Party Has Raised Him Higher. I Tested Him Too: On Hinduism, Six of His Claims Fail the Texts. Here's the Record

On 25 November 1949 B.R. Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly that in politics, "Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship." Forty years later the Government of India announced his Bharat Ratna, the Prime Minister unveiled his portrait in Parliament's Central Hall and a Year of Social Justice began in his name; since then governments run by several parties have built him bigger statues, and parties have accused their rivals of insulting him. I tested this file's own first version against Parliament's records, government orders, a Supreme Court order and his collected works, claim by claim: what the record carries stays, what it does not is withdrawn, and the motive, "for votes", is a charge made by critics, not a finding. And because his own warning says no great man should be beyond question, I tested twenty of his own claims, most of them from his unpublished appendix on Rama and Krishna in Riddles in Hinduism, against the Sanskrit texts: six are wrong, two leave out what the texts say, six overstate, and six hold.

Zoomed Vinay Special · Fact

Ambedkar on Islam: "Brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims Only," "Hindu Raj… the Greatest Calamity," and the Malabar "Jehad" Line He Never Wrote

In December 1940 B.R. Ambedkar finished a party report on the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan, and in 1945 he turned it into a book with his own verdict added. It holds some of his hardest sentences about Islam and Muslim society and, in the same volume, some of his hardest about Hinduism and caste Hindus. Here every one of them goes back on its page, with its edition, its argument and its critics, and I correct, out loud, a quotation our first version printed that is not in the book. Then, for the first time, his claims about Hinduism are tested against the texts themselves, Manu, the Gita, the Upanishads and the Rig Veda, and against the record of his own years: where he read them right, where he took one text for the whole, and where the record shows he was wrong.

Zoomed Vinay Special · Fact

Ambedkar Renounced Hinduism and Wrote Down Why: From the 1927 Manusmriti Bonfire to "Worthless" Vedas and the 22 Vows of 1956

For twenty-one years, from Yeola in 1935 to Nagpur in 1956, B.R. Ambedkar said in print and from the stage that he would leave Hinduism, and then he left it, taking lakhs of people with him. I have put his words back on their pages in the Government of Maharashtra's own volumes, beside the words of his that cut the other way and what his critics said back. Then I opened Manu, the Rig Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita to check what he said they say. On caste in Manu, he holds. On "worthless" Vedas and Manu's "three sanctions", the texts say otherwise, and Gandhi's reply fails the same test. Our first version said he "hated" Hinduism; I tested that word against the record, and the record does not carry it.

Zoomed Vinay Special · Fact

Ambedkar Was Not a Quit India Freedom Fighter. In 1942 He Sat in the Viceroy's Council That Jailed Its Leaders

On 21 July 1942 Ambedkar called civil disobedience "treachery to India"; on 8 August the Viceroy's Council he had just joined gave its "unanimous support" to the Quit India arrests, and in September he defended them in the Central Legislative Assembly. But his own question was "freedom for what and freedom for whom": he wrote that the Untouchables were "not opposed to freedom from British Imperialism", and he would not fight for a freedom that left them under the rule of caste. Eight claims, told straight and tested against the British government's papers and his collected works, with volume and page, and neither camp's slogan comes out whole. Then his own judgement gets the same test, and Gandhi's too: from his forecast, as the Governor reported it, that the Congress "might be possible to ignore" to the "all Untouchables" of Plassey, where each man was wrong, the file says so, and where each was right, it says that too.

Zoomed Vinay Special · Fact

Ambedkar Said "I Was a Hack." Minutes Later the Home Minister Told Him: "You Had Drafted This Constitution." The Hack Line Is Only Half.

Eight claims about who wrote India's Constitution, tested one by one against the Constituent Assembly's debates, the Drafting Committee's own minutes, the Rajya Sabha's debates of 1953 and 1955 and Ambedkar's collected works, and told straight. A civil servant wrote the first draft, committees led by Nehru and Patel settled the fundamentals, and Ambedkar chaired the committee that rewrote it, present at every one of the 43 sittings whose minutes are printed. He called himself "a hack" in 1953 and, eighteen months later, called the same Constitution "a wonderful document": the story that he wrote it alone and the slogan that he took no part in writing it both fail against the record. Then the file tests him too: the Hindu text he named himself in 1955, the Hindu texts behind his other words, and his own claims about the Assembly and the Constitution against the record, much of it his own later words. Of ten, four hold, five are overstated and one is wrong.